The Press Box - Ep. 199: ‘The Masked Man Show’ With LaToya Ferguson

Episode Date: October 26, 2016

David Shoemaker and LaToya Ferguson discuss the new WWE Performance Center recruits (9:31), story lines involving cars (21:30), superstar James Ellsworth (24:17), and the 'Hell in a Cell' main events (35:15). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Bill Simmons. Today's episode of Channel 33 is brought to you by Seekkeek, the presenting sponsor for my podcast, as well as the only fan-friendly app for buying and selling tickets for sports and music. With just two taps on your phone, you can instantly buy SeatGeek tickets to an event, and you can enter that event just using your phone. No paper tickets. Drop your old ticket app.

Use one that's built for 2016. Download the free Seatgeek app or go to Seekkekekekeek.com. And don't forget to check out my fairly new website, the ringer.com, for the very best in sports, tech, and pop culture coverage. And don't forget about the ringer podcast network, which features Keeping in 1600, The Watch, Channel 33, Shackhouse, and our ringer shows for the NFL, NBA, and MLB. And finally, don't forget about my new television show, any given Wednesday, which runs every Wednesday night at 10 p.m. on HBO. And reruns on HBO Now, HBO Go, and HBO. on demand. And now without further ado, here is

the Masked Man, David Shoemaker. Welcome to the Mask Man Show. I'm David Shoemaker. And I'm joined today by my dear friend, Latoya Ferguson. Hi, David. How are you? Victoria, as always rocking the hardcore WWFan fan gear.

She's wearing a Razor Ramon coat jacket as sold on www.com, I believe. Yes, sir. Very stylish. got numerous compliments on the way in. It's our role. The guy at the commissary selling us coffee was really excited, talked about it for a minute, asked if we'd seen the documentary, the Scott Hall documentary.

This is my question for you. I was going to ask you on the way in and then I stopped, but I'm going to put you on the spot here. I don't like to test my guests wrestling knowledge too frequently, but this is, I think, a trivia question that's really worth asking. Can you name three wrestlers who don't have documentaries made about them? Oh, well, it's kind of like just easy if you want to go Jabber, Jabber City, really. You're right, you're right. I think we're just kind of, we've reached maximum capacity of wrestling, I mean, wrestling

documentary. And even though people that really deserve it, like Jake the Snake are documentaries that make me really sad to watch. I mean, even the Hardee's got a documentary before they were really at their prime. And if you count WWE style like documentaries with, uh, where it's just like, here's what's happened in their lives. And there's like childhood photos with like old-timey piano playing in the background and that's that there's like everybody has the ones that are in character those are

the great ones like I think Cina's first WV documentary is definitely in character as doctor of thuganomics oh really yeah oh man I love that I love that I mean I'm sure there was there an undertaker one but he was he interviewed I don't know if he was interviewed actually he could I don't think so he couldn't have been I remember there was like there were there were there been some great like documentary style things that they put out and I remember there was one not too long ago that talked about probably back on Cheap Heat where Bray Wyatt was being interviewed and was in this perfect like semi-KFabe zone like he was still kind of scary and wearing like you know a Jack Daniels t-shirt but like not fully in character and it's such a weird thing undertaker by the way

was at the Cleveland Cavaliers opening season opener not because he has a relationship with lebron james or anybody else but because lebron wore that undertaker shirt um after the playoffs last year in the playoffs last year and Undertaker came as a show of mutual respect. I mean, my favorite part of like seeing pictures for that is like usually my favorite part of a lot of Undertaker appearances is just bonus Michelle McCool.

You have Undertaker and like all his gear and just Michelle McCool just chilling. Just chilling by the side. She's, yeah, she's really great. I also just love that there are sports writers referring to just Undertaker. Like it's not, there's no pretense of like let me type his real name.

I guess Twitter has really helped with K-Fave in that sense. Right. You don't want to put people's whole names. I think people in general don't want to blow up Undertaker's spot. I think he's earned it. Yeah. He's earned. I mean, it's basically like when a player, like when Kobe decided he was going to be the black Mamba and everybody made fun of him.

And then at some point everyone's just like, well, it's Kobe. He can, we'll call him by this dumb nickname. But it's even more severe for, I mean, significant for the Undertaker. Because he's, I mean, no one has earned a, just a screwball name more than him. Agreed. All right. I'm glad we're up today. on that. I don't know if there's any big wrestling news, news from the world of the squared

circle. There was this, there is this ongoing, kind of interesting story about FlowSlam, which is a FlowSports is opening up a indie wrestling vertical, which I guess is it, is it on TV or just over the top internet? I think it's, right now just internet. I'm not sure if it's going to be an app. There has to be an app, I would assume, for like the on-demand situation. Yeah, WWE is kind of incidentally an investor. Yeah, they've invested, but. But they're not, they don't have any control. They didn't know.

They were an investor in flow sports, I guess, and I didn't know that they were going to go into wrestling, and Meltzer's reporting that they're very unhappy. Shout out today, Meltzer, by the way. He's had some family stuff this week. But the, but yeah, I mean, it's just a really weird, I mean, it's really interesting. Apparently, PWG has declined.

We know you and I have been to a PWG show together, and I'm sure we're both familiar with the goings-on of PWG. They're not very interested in expanding the business model. And they're fine doing what they're doing. They're doing great. I mean, my biggest problem with it now is that whenever I say those three letters on my podcast, people tweet me to tell me that they don't want to hear about this indie promotion. Oh, so you're saying we should have a very lengthy discussion about PWG because I'm ready.

Well, we will, we're going to get into this really quickly. There's actually a little PWG sidebar that's about to come up. But before we get there, I mean, I'm interested. I would be interested. I would, listen, this is my job, part of my job. It's a small part these days, but soon maybe a bigger part. But like I'm going to pay if I will pay a reasonable amount of money to get flow slam. I mean, this sounds like a really cool thing.

Yeah, it's always good to have more access. There's just, there's so many small little indie that people don't know about. or would be interested in. And anything to give more exposure, I always support, unless it means I can't get PWG tickets. Well, yeah, I mean, it's a good, I mean, it's interesting. Another thing Meltzer said was that it's going to kind of change the game for guys like Kylo Riley and Adam Cole, maybe the bucks that like it's, like,

maybe this will provide a huge new revenue stream so that like staying on the Indies is, is, you know, a good option. I think those are, I mean, I think those people in particular were weird ones to pick because I think that. Yeah, they're the ones who are fine. otherwise. They're fine now and they all kind of still want to end up

in WD, I don't know with the bucks, they seem like an odd like an interesting case but like, you know, Adam Cole, there have been rumors

that he's headed there forever. Yeah. If there was a season of NXT that was only Kylo Riley wrestling jobbers, I would watch every episode. But anyway, yeah,

but I do think it's, I think the more interesting thing is if this is a viable revenue stream, it's more interesting from like a guy's leaving WWE perspective. right? I mean, not just Cody Rhodes who wants to go wrestle on the Indies, but if you're

you know, maybe this is the option that like a Kurt Angle when he went to TNA would have taken. You know, you can just wrestle for bigger money on bigger indies that are going to be televised. You know, you do it once or twice a month. But yeah, I mean,

I don't know. It'll be interesting to see how this all plays out. I kind of think that it's going to be, the WWE is upset that they don't have control over a wrestling thing they're investing in, but I bet there's some people there that aren't too disappointed that some of these Indies are going to get exposure. And I support, you know, lesser-known indie guys, especially getting paid, like living wages, at least, like just from that kind of revenue, from residuals, anything to help them, because you hear the horror stories,

and you know what most of the guys who are on the top now in W.B. You know what they went through, just like getting paid in a hot dog, basically. I mean, listen, yeah, we suspend disbelief to the point that we don't think about that stuff that much. And it's not like we don't talk about it. Everybody, you know, we talk about it, you know, at the, you know, quieter, sadder moments of our existence or whatever. But the, but when you go see, if you go see an indie show or any wrestling show, but, you know, I'm thinking specifically about smaller venues. You sit close to the ring. I mean, people joke about wrestling rings being trampolines, even if they were trampolines.

You're watching dudes and ladies just beat the crap out of themselves. and part of the tortured logic that's built into it, at least for me, is that with WWE, they wrestle, they have these big schedules, but this is their job. They spend much of the time that they're not doing this, like actively rehabbing from the injuries they have and sitting in ice baths and doing whatever. You know, indie guys, some of these, some indie performers are destroying themselves

to get attention and then going back to like Kinko's copies to go to work a 12-hour shift or something. You know what I mean? it's not it's it's it's it's getting paid is a is is is better um speaking though of indie wrestlers there is a uh the wb e just this is my favorite time of year really um not time of year but just my favorite whenever a dub whenever wwee dot com puts out the article that's like welcome a w w performance center welcomes new recruits i just get so excited for some reason i don't know why it feels like, I don't know, like, they're casting the new X-Men movie and it's everybody that I wanted

or that's some bad ones or something. Especially the past few years, it's like, yay, it's people I've been seeing for ages finally getting to show on a bigger stage what they can do, you know? Yeah, I mean, and just to bring this quickly back around it to PWG, but not, it's not specific to them. I've talked about it before, but one of the members of this class is Tommy End, real name Tom Budgeon of Amsterdam, according to W. www.com.

I love him. Like, I just think he's so great. I've said it before on this show, but if you want to just do a YouTube dive on somebody, just go watch him, Tommy. And, you know, you can also see a really incredible evolution, both of a wrestler and of a tattoo-having person. The tattoos spread as the videos go on. I love a good tattoo evolution.

That's always fun. But, yeah, I mean, he's just really tight- talented. And it's like, he's, uh, he looks a little bit shorter in this photo than I was expecting, but he's, but he's, he's got all the talent in the world. He, like, it would be hard, you know, a lot of things could go wrong in anybody's career, but I just, I think he's going to be champion. I mean, honestly, just watch him, watch a couple of his later indie matches and it's just, he's got all the star power in the world. He's one of those guys who like hooked me right away because he just has, quote unquote, it. Yeah, he's got the, he's got the look, but he's got it

separately from the look, right? Yeah. The look, but like, so you see him and you're like, oh, this is going to, like, maybe you're into the look, maybe you're not, but he gets your attention. But, oh, it's, he's got, it's, yeah, he's got something beyond that. And Roderick Strong. You smiled. I'm so happy.

I'm so happy for my shitty little champ. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I, I think I watched a bad Roderick Strong. My first exposure to Roderick Strong was not a good experience. Not, it wasn't like a terrible showing or anything, but I was just sort of like, oh, this is the guy everybody's talking about, whatever. And then it took me a while to really come back around on him. His heel run in Ring of Honor, or his most recent one was good.

I really enjoyed it. And I think for me, the biggest thing was seeing him at PWG. Like you see him on a couple of indie shows outside of storyline. You see the affection the crowd has for him. And I don't know, you see the way he can work those matches. Yeah, he's like a workhorse and like a true. sense of the word. Do you think he's not a cruiser weight, is he?

No, I think he leans towards like 220 or something. I mean, he's solid. He's, he's never been like a grotesquely muscled guy, so I have find it hard to imagine. I don't want him to get skinny and go out there, but we'll see. I mean, I would love for him

to sort of, he could fill that sort of like Dean Malenko role if he were, if they, you know, played fast and loose with the weight require with the weight limits or i would like for them to fix what they're doing with the cruiser weights first before we talk about adding more people oh um let's get into that i'm i'm interested in this this is uh raw was um you know i didn't hate i kind of enjoyed everything about raw this week it was not as bad as i expected i'll give it that yeah but it was it just i watched it uh last night i watched it late

so i didn't need to watch it live oh really yeah so it wasn't it wasn't bad but coming off last week I was kind of hard on it because I or was it last week of the week before I guess last week because they didn't gold Goldberg made his you know made his appearance the ratings spiked and then but the show itself and they had a go home show and you know how that kind of falls apart yeah but like they're just not it seems like like the brand split is hurting raw a lot more than it was hurt than it's hurting Smackdown because they just there's not a lot of content to fill and that's fine I mean like I don't I'm not mad at like I said it like I said it's last week, you know, Bronstrom in segments are fine by me. I mean, this week was better than was more significant than the previous ones. But yeah, man, it's a, it's been a weird. They have trouble filling three hours, which is ridiculous, considering all the people who are left off the show. Yeah, I think that's it. I think I would rather them have, I think I would rather like an hour, just roughly speaking, an hour of the three be just like jam-packed, like,

fast matches or quick things or whatever. The problem is it just, it is a sort of like slow, ever since they went to three hours, the paces just slowed down just enough. Like I don't think they could do crash TV if they wanted to. Instead of upping the pace, they just stretched it to a pace to fit two hours of material and a three hours. And then when they did, so let's get to the cruiser weights, which you wanted to talk about. The cruiser weights seemed like they were going to be the fill in, right?

Like they were going to fill those gaps and make to show more. more exciting and more fast pace. Instead, they just gave the cruiser weights backstories and like storylines and... Some of them. Well, some of them, but they're... I mean, it's like the old women's division where they would... We're going to concentrate on two people at a time, or three, I guess. I think we have three cruiser weights that we're supposed to care about.

But they just, they're fully... They're fully W.E. integrated now. Yeah, they're not really doing the style of wrestling you saw on the Cruiserweight classic. Like they're just doing the typical WWE style, slowing things down, a lot of rest holds, which is not what anyone was expecting. Is that your biggest hangup? No, I think my biggest hangup is definitely the Divas Revolution booking of it all. Yeah. I mean, it's tough.

I don't think they should go like old school NXT, like the reality show one, where the fans are kind of voting for people. But it does sort of seem crazy that, like, Cedric Alexander gets the reactions. that he gets and we're just going to back burner him for a while. You know, like, I don't know. I mean, I don't, do you get the impression that, like, T.J. Perkins is over? I think he is over, but I think it is, uh, quickly going to fade because he is not the best actor.

And, uh, the WB writing for him and his love of video games is definitely not the best writing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It kind of seems like, it's almost like, uh, like, you know, WWU, it's like

WW's insistence on signing a luchador who can speak English really clearly. It's like, can we not, if they just stuck with like the very simplest aspect of like T.J. Perkins, the look, the entrance music, you know, and the obvious in ring talent, it seems like they would have,

they would have a huge star that would be, or at least a star that would be really over with like kids buying merch and that sort of thing, you know? When I was at Raw a few weeks ago, The kids clearly liked him, and there were a bunch of people who were into him, but it was one of those things where it's just like, you know they're supposed to be into him. It wasn't really, everyone was super excited. Yeah.

Anyway, so anything out, Rich Swan is, Rich Swan got the full, or maybe the past two weeks, has gotten like the full video package treatment. How do you feel about Rich Swan? I love Rich Swan. Again, the PWG connection, but also he's just, he's so fun, and I'm not going to say he loves to have fun. because those are the buzzwords, but he, my mom, she watches this wrong with me, and she had never really seen R. Swan.

The time she's been to PG-G was, like, post-Swan. But she was, like, immediately hooked on him, even though, in theory, it's just a typical, another dancing gimmick. But he's got a lot more charisma than just, I'm a dancer. Yeah. He does have that sort of weird, hard-to-pin-down charisma, too. And I, and, yeah, I have enjoyed him, I've enjoyed watching him in W. than I thought I would, despite the fact that I always enjoyed them when I saw him outside.

Yeah, I don't know. I think that they, it is, another thing, another way to parallel it to the women's wrestling is anytime there's been sort of a step forward in the women's division over the past couple of years, WAB has always had to sort of like figure out what they were doing. Like you make the, you make the pronouncement, you change the belt, you call, or you have the, you call everybody up from NXT and say it's the Divas Revolution. it takes about six months for like for that vibe to actually trickle down through the writing staff and the management and everybody else and to figure out how to book it. I mean, it's not like it's not everything is just abiding by the same pro wrestling booking playbook.

And that's a good thing, right? That's a good thing. But at the same time, I think for the women, they, everyone kind of realized, well, I guess outside of W. that the best way to book them was not to be like, hey, look, it's a DeVis Revolution, look how we're revolutionizing things. And, hey, that actually worked when they stopped doing that. So maybe they should do it for the Cruiserweight division,

stop saying, hey, look, cruiser waits, and just let them be as cool as they were. Let them be cool. Yeah, I think to me the most interesting thing, and I don't want to go too far down this path, because wrestling is, when your enjoyment is fantasy booking, then, you know, you're doing something wrong. but.

You're doing a lot of things wrong. I'm going to be interested to see what happens the first time the, like, black hole opens up or whatever, and cruiser waits and the main roster interact in a real way. Because, you know, for whatever you think about, I mean, for whatever the reaction is to Perkins or to Kendrick, Rich Swan, actually, Rich Swan or Cedric Alexander are probably the closest, the two that are closest to, like, crossover breakout, even though, you know, the whole point of this is to say there's going to be some match where the heel where like

Stephanie McMahon forces Seth Rollins or somebody else. It just forces the baby face of the moment to take on a cruiserweight just as like whatever. Or maybe put you know better yet. Stephanie McMahon books a cruiserweight against Kevin Owens to protect Kevin Owens even though he has to defend the title. And then the crowd's going to go absolutely apeshit for whatever cruiser weight is in there with Owens. You know what I mean?

Like when the war. world to collide, that's going to be the moment for the cruiser waits. The question then is, like, how separate can you keep them? Well, yeah, I actually have a couple things. Go back to Rich Swan real quick. When I was at Raw a few weeks ago, I was actually very, very worried. And that's when I tweeted about how they need to stop the Devas Revolution booking because Rich Swan came out.

And it was literally like me and my brother were the only two people who were hyped as hell for Rich Swan. And I'm like, what's happening here? Like, we were trying to get some chance going, and it was so dire. Oh my gosh. I'm glad that it has changed in the... The misery of the diehard wrestling fan that we were trying to get some rich swan chance going and nobody was buying it. That's a moment.

These people did not love to have fun, which... What are you doing? It's really crazy. You know, I think the problem is a lot of people don't like to have fun when they're told, you know, now's the time to have fun. Little kids, maybe. But anyway. Little kids should love Rich Swan. I'm just saying.

But I was going to say, as much as I'm actually enjoying Braun Stroben versus Sammy Zane now, how amazing would it be if it were like a cruiserweight guy who got put into the program with Braun? Yeah. Because you can do actual storylines. And right now they're just doing the one storyline about how Brian Kendrick used to drive T.J. Perkins to wrestling. That's it. That's the storyline. That's, yeah. Yeah. Well, you know. I always like, I think the one thing we've learned in WWU history is that anytime they can make a storyline that involves a car ride,

then it's gold, right? There was the rock getting run over. I mean, sorry, Stone Gold getting run over. There was Vince McMahon's limousine blowing up. Stephanie being kidnapped by Undertaker. Exactly. Yeah, the one thing that's a tried and true storyline is to make sure we're as far away from the wrestling ring as possible

and in a moving vehicle, the Giants Monster Truck. Do you remember that back in WCW? you? Shemis steals Del Rio's car and takes a dump in it. And somehow this is like the worst. It's like the most lo-fi version of a car gimmick. Yeah, I think the only time it's ever,

the only car gimmick I've ever really liked was like, was like Jerry the King Lawler getting slammed through a windshield back in Memphis or like, wasn't there a car, dusty roads and four horsemen car situation? One of the times they broke his leg or something. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that stuff is cool. That's just like we're trying to hurt you, really badly. One of the worst, it wasn't even really a car gimmick, but like it had one of the worst

moments is John Cena spray painting JBL is poopie on his limo. Right. That's what happens when you bring cars into wrestling people. Spray rain on the other hand, I'm all in on. I love a good spray painting. What did Kofi do to, didn't Kofi do something in Orden's car? Yeah, he just paint all over it pretty much. Well, um, we saw some, we saw some spray paint on Smackdown. There's not really much to talk about about Smackdown, except Becky Lynch is back and healthy. I mean, Smackdown just keep doing you. Smackdown has, like, at least three women's stories going on. Yes.

One of them is, you know, a promotional tool for Total Bellas, but that's fine. Like, the Bella stuff last night was weirdly compelling. I was watching it with an 8-year-old boy. This is not a guy. Who are you hanging out with? This is my girlfriend as a kid. So there's an 8-year-old boy. He's never watched a wrestling.

It's the prime time, prime time. Until like three, like a month ago, it took him, I said this before, it took him, it took him 30 seconds to go from, I don't want to watch this to John Cena as my favorite person. Like that was, we were watching the main event on debate night, the triple threat match. And the, so there is that, and now he's, I think his second favorite wrestler is Nikki Bella. Aw. So it's, he's, he's all in on the rack attack. The, so yeah, that was cool. Becky, I mean, Becky's back, which it's good to see here.

That main event, the fact that they're doing, I mean, the fact that they're actually making James Ellsworth, who apparently is, it got a full, got a contract. I don't know if he got a contract, but he's about to get a contract. Something like that, yeah, but the fact that they're making him into such an integral part. I mean, I said, I said this before, and you, and when you say Smackdown Keep Doing you, I feel like this is it. It's like to have the, they have a, they have a, you know, a roster that's a little bit too small for, in WWE terms, a little bit smaller than the bookers are used to. And instead of stretching things out like raw is, they're just like making use of everybody that they can pull up. I mean, the fact that, that Dolph Ziegler was facing off against the Miz in the Spirit Squad last night,

and Beauty and the Man Beast came out, and Ziegler just handed the mic to Heath Slater and let Heath Slater cut another, like, Humboldy Heath Slater problem. I mean, that's just so great, you know? It's like, it's not, like, old WWE would have been them just standing behind him looking menacing, right? Mm-hmm. But now it's like, Heath Slater, we don't know why, but people respond to you. So here, just have the microphone, you know? It's so beautiful when you let these people who are good at what they do, do what they do.

Yeah. And to figure out what someone like Ellsworth can do. He's really good with, like, the emotional stuff, actually, watching him on Talking Smack when he was apologizing. Yeah. I felt really bad. Yeah. Yeah. I think the WW should just have,

you know, there was a time long ago where I said that WW needed to have, they needed to bring back NXT, like that, like that I want to be a wrestler version. I mean, I will talk about the games for a version of NXT

like for another full episode of this podcast. Well, that's great. We should. The, we'll save that for the Mass Man Show after dark or self-limental podcast. But the,

no, but I said they should have a season where it was like they did, like they did. the UFC on Tough Enough where they just had former wrestler or former WWT talent trying out for a second round.

So it would be like at that point So it's like NXT redemption. Exactly. It's like you'd have like the boogeyman and whoever I don't know. Why is everyone always trying to make the boogeyman happen? The boogeyman should never happen. But like to have one of just indie guys

who were like over the age of 35. You know? Just the James L. I don't know how old he is. He's immortal. Yeah. But just have that. I think that WW should just be forced to sign an indie guy who's just been doing it for 15 years just once every six months.

Every time they send out this www.com story that's like, hey, look at the new class. There should be one like tubby 40-year-old dude just standing in the background. Like that would be so great. I would be 100% in on that. And I think that, you know, it would benefit everybody. Keep WWE weird. NXT, that original game to actually got, became the best when it became the weirdest show

like in WV history. Oh yeah, it was. Because it sort of became like an alt comedy that Vince McMahon had no idea was still on the air. I think that's absolutely true. It was, there were some parts of it that were, I think in real time it was less fun, but in retrospect, it was just,

it was less fun for the commentary. It's like we're on day 300 of NXT season five. Speaking of commentary, how are you, it's been a little while since a brand split. Let's get back to Raw, but do you have feelings on the two commentary teams? David O'Tunga is not good, but he's gotten better the past couple weeks. He's had some really good Ellsworth Barbes. I agree. I don't, I was, I was overly high on him when he made his first time, when he had his like tryout right before the brand split. I thought he was really good.

I think just hearing a different voice is, has a lot, you know, makes you, makes you excited. And then it kept happening. Yeah. Like when he said, you can tell that Powell Cruz is a big fan of Sina because of his muscles. Yeah. That was funny. The, I think that, I mean,

I love, and I like their, I think the raw announced team is really good. It is, actually, yeah. I kind of feel like they should make Corey Graves talk through some sort of voice manipulation machine,

so he sounds a little bit. There's a lot, everybody's sort of in the same octave on raw, and it's, there's not as much, like, JBL, like, he-hawing. Like, you know it's JBL.

You know, it kind of, it breaks up the monotony a little bit. You were, like, the only person who's ever said, what we need is more people who sound like JBL. We need people who just sound, like, they don't, like, they don't sound exactly the same, but they don't, like, break up, like, when they interrupt each other, it's just sort of the same drone to me. Anyway, I think Corey Graves is great.

I just wish that when Corey Graves talked, it was like, it got my attention, like it was Bobby the Brain Heenan, but cutting it on Gorilla Monsoon. You couldn't feel like the venom that comes with, like, everything Corey says to Byron? And sometimes even to Michael Cole, Yeah, Corey Graves is playing, he's like the best heel on the raw roster right now.

I mean, he just has no time for anything and it's great. Let me run through the rest of raw real quick before we get turned to Hell and a Cell, the real reason, the most important thing to talk about. Enzo, so Inzo beat Carl Anderson. I think that that feud is going a pace, is continuing a pace. It is continuing a pace. Yeah, and there is a pace involved. I'm not quite sure why Seamus and Cizaro had to prove anything by beating the new day on Monday.

Because as we all know, that the way you build a story is by just doing it over and over again. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's so great. I think it would have been better if we just continued with the assumption that, like, they couldn't win. And then let's do something exciting on Sunday. Anyway, are you excited about Bo Dallas defeating Curtis Axel? This little mini. By the way, there are many reports.

Who knows if they're true, because such reports often are very isolated incidents, but Curtis Axel himself joined in to say that they were confiscating Curtis Axel signs on Monday night. It's kind of ridiculous. I want to know what the signs were saying, though, if there were any Curtis Axel signs. I can believe that they were. You think they were lewd signs? Like the, like the, the, the, the, the, the, bro with the Finn Baller sign was there with the Curtis Axel sign? I wish.

I doubt they were lewd, but I just, I want to know what apparently makes you want to say, the buck stops here with this Curtis Axel sign. Yeah, it's interesting. Especially because he kind of did, because he did like a homecoming promo. Yeah, they clearly wanted him to be cheered for. Yeah, it would have been a different thing if it was like, he's just getting squashed by Seth Rallens or something,

but like instead, yeah, it was a strange thing. Anyway, I don't, I'm in on this feud. I'm interested to see if there's like. Is this really a feud though? Because I don't understand, I'm still very confused about this Boe Dallas situation. I think both of them have potential to really be something. And I think my disappointment with, and clearly they're doing something with them here. Something.

A thing is happening with their in segments. It's also keeping a pace. Yeah, there is a pace involved in this too. There's a, but I just think that it's, I feel like now is the time to really push the button on, I mean, that post-brands split, you have about, you know, six months to really like reestablish somebody is not nothing. You know, and now it would be the time to do it with these guys, and I hope that they do it because it's, yeah, I mean, they both could bring something to the table. I don't know exactly what it is, but, like, there's something there.

We'll skip, Archie, well, the Golden Truth versus the Shand stars. I will say that when I was at Raw. I was so happy when Golden Truth came out because I was excited to wrap along to the theme. I love it. I'm not going to apologize for that. Do you like the world's strongest golden truth? Now I have to learn new lyrics, and I'm not here for that. Do you like Titus O'Neill's bumping ability?

Did you catch that? That was like the gift that launched a thousand battleships or whatever, a thousand wrestling memes. The gift that lost a thousand battleships. Yeah. But that was, it was so, it was hilarious in real time, and then immediately it was like all over Twitter. I look how you always find a way to bring up Titus and or Natalia when I'm here. Really?

Yeah. Just so you can get like me frustrated. All right, we'll move on. We talked about your man, Rich Swan. Brock Lesnar came back. Excited? I don't care about this match, but I do care about how WV thought he was going to get booed in his hometown.

What a weird promo, right? Yeah. That was one of the weirdest. The three people chanting for Goldberg, and they turned into Goldberg sucks from everyone. And Paul Heyman still fought back, still was arguing, like, Paul Heyman is one of the most gifted, talkers in professional wrestling, maybe in professional wrestling history, in 2016,

you people shut up does not work, right? Like, you can't get, you can't get the automatic cheap heat of, like, your sports team sucks. It wasn't that kind of cheap. It's the one where it's like you people shut up is where you expect, you really want them to go louder, but no one got louder, and it was still only three people cheering for Goldberg. Yeah.

And then that was overtaken completely. It was really confusing. Like, if you were. It was amazing to see it after. it aired because I just know new people had been tweeting about it. I'm like, well, I need to see. Did they fix it for the, did you watch it? Did you watch her, do you record it? Yeah. I got to go back

and watch it. Apparently on Hulu they they, uh, they, uh, they fixed it in post. Um, do you think, did they buy the, uh, do they buy the cassette tapes that have the Goldberg chant that they piped in through the WC, when they bought WCW? Did they get that sound, that sound effect with the purchase? They're still using just like, like, cassette tapes for sounds from WCW. Um, and then, oh, uh, raw. If he had Owens and Jericho.

I mean, we'll talk about this after the break, but I just think it's amazing how significant Jericho is. And he got maybe the biggest pop of the three of them at the entrance. It was crazy. He also makes me so happy. He's really great. All right. Let's take a quick break.

And then we'll come back and talk all about Hell on a Cell. NFL season is in full swing, and it's time to get you in on the action. I recommend betddyesi.com with over 20 years. years in the business, BetDSI has built an impeccable reputation among all types of players. As one of the internet's top-rated gaming sites, betdysi.com offers safe, premium-level service, including 24-7 live chat and phone service. You can wager on virtually every sport. Not we figured out professional wrestling, but we're working on that. They have hundreds of NFL wagers, college football, NASCAR, UFC, and mostly more important than all that, Trump versus

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But while that's going on, the vast majority of people listening to this show will be paying attention to WW Hellow and Esau. Do we even know why they double booked that night? I have no idea. When people started texting me and they were like, hey, we got to make plans for Sunday because there's a pay-per-view and this NXT show. I was like, what I bought tickets to a show on the same night as a paper? I'm so confused. I guess they just, what time is the NXT show? We can cut this out, but.

No, no, let's talk about it. I think that the way it works out is that, like, we might miss the main event. Okay. Like, I was, I think, I think I'm going to, you're invited to come watch at the ringer offices. And then we'll just, like, run down the street to the show. It's so confusing. But, like, if we do it, if we time everything just perfectly, we'll only miss maybe the main event or we'll miss the beginning of NXT. But what is the main event?

Well, that's it. Maybe that's why they're talking about putting the women on masks because they really hate women's wrestling. But anyway, there's three main events. I just rolled my eyes, by the way, people. Yeah. There's three main events. We will, I think we can safely skip everything in the paper view that's not one of the main events. We talked about it when we talked about Raw.

So main event number one, Roman Reins versus Rusef. Now, on a scale of, let's say, one to five, How much hell do you think these, I'm going to ask you to rate each of the hell in a cell matches on a level, on rating the hell on a scale of one to five. One being the least hell and five being the most hell that is contained within the cell. Roman Reins versus Rousseff, hell rating one to five. I'll give it a three just to put it right in the middle and not include the factors of the hell I'm put through when I'm supposed to. to be cheering for Roman Reigns, despite how terrible of a character he is in this feud? And, I mean, by terrible, do you mean poorly acted or that he's being booked as an old-fashioned

heel, and WW's doesn't seem to be aware of it? Definitely the latter, although that last promo was not really great, not really greatly acted, I'd say. Yeah. And Rousseff, so was it last week that Rusef had the big promo package, or was it this, my brain is so fried. Let's see, last week was the one where he showed his family. Yeah, which was like,

That was just like, that was the promo package where Nikita Koloff turned baby face. Like that was, like, it was incredible. I feel like, is there something wrong with me? Or am I just not enough of a sociopath to hate Rusev? The only, the biggest heilish thing he's done in the past month is to shave off his mustache. Like, that's, like, it's, it's very strange. I'm going to give that a two. in hell level

I feel like they'll deliver in the match I think they'll deliver I think that they'll deliver I just think that I just I've been saying this for a month now a broken record

but I feel like they're going to be restricted by the way they book the each of these three matches is going to be restricted by the way they booked the other two matches right?

Like you can't have any duplication of any spot at any point in the match so it's just going to be a little bit it's just not going to be everything that it could be and I feel like it's going to come through Especially when you can have, like, Rustamina,

you have one Hellnessel match, and that restricts Brock Lesnar versus Dean Ambrose. So you have one Hellen Sell match, and there are two others, that's just asking for trouble. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think these two have, they have increasingly good chemistry in the ring,

and I sort of feel like of all of the Hellasel matches, of all three of these main events, Rusef and Reigns have a sort of style and chemistry that feels like it's going to work really well in the cell. I don't think the other two are going to be better matches, but I feel like I'm interested to see how they work in the cell. I don't know. Maybe I'm crazy.

That said. Will it be better than Roman versus Bray last year where we met? I was a huge fan of that entire, of every time Roman Raines and Bray got in the ring together. Like I kind of, I was talking about them at the time to the, you know, laughter of the Twitter peanut gallery, but I was saying, like, we could be watching, you know,

this generation's rock triple H feud right here because they were both kind of making each other better and that one match they had on Raw was just like off the charts good. I mean, I thought they had good chemistry. I think that I like, I don't think this is at that level. And it doesn't help that they're booking it as like,

you know, it's like half comedy. You know, and both of these wrestlers should be just brawling. If only there were no storyline, so I wouldn't feel like a crazy person watching the entire thing. Yeah. No, I agree. And I think, so that's what I think brawling is what is the bread and butter of this feud. And I think we're going to see a lot of it on Sunday.

Who do you think is going to win? Roman. It does feel like where you put Roman over, but I just feel like, I think I'm with you on Roman. If I was going to take the long odds and make a bet. I mean, I just want to reach up to be U.S. champion forever, but I know that can't happen. So they want them to get the title back and never lose it ever. Yeah. I mean, I know that these Hellnessel matches are supposed to be like the end of a feud,

but it's hard to imagine that this is going to be the end. Maybe this is the end of this feud. I don't know. I don't know. I want it to be the end of the feud. Kevin Owens versus Seth Rawlins for the WW Universal Championship inside Hell and a cell. On a scale of 1 to 5, how much hell is in this cell? based on the story that they're doing a two

based on if the two of them were allowed to do like basically the chains were taken off of them I'd say a four I'm with you on that and I actually think that my fears about the booking of this night this might actually help Owens and Rollins just in the sense that they can be like oh hey we know we have like five spots

that's never happened in WWU before so can we just do those so we don't overlap with anybody like maybe this will be of those. I don't know. It'll be interesting. I'm, like, I feel like confident this is going to be a really good match, but I feel of all three, this is the hardest one for me to imagine for some reason. Yeah, because in theory, they should have like an excellent match and that should be the case with their entire feud, but that's not exactly what's happening right now. Yeah, no, I mean, this is, that's a really good point. The feud's been, the feud such as it is, has been a little bit lackluster.

And part of that is that, I mean, tell me if you disagree, Rollins didn't really, like, get over as a baby face that they wanted him to be. I mean, I think the time, we talked about it. I talked about the time, the timing of it was off, just the pacing of that whole thing. And he doesn't have to be a pure baby face. I mean, that's clear. But it almost seems like when he didn't start getting the massive crowd reactions that one would assume they wanted, they just sort of took him off TV.

And it's weird because he might not have been getting the massive. massive reactions, but he was still getting better, like, just pure face reactions than, like, a Roman, basically. Oh, sure. People clearly want to cheer him, and as we know, they wanted to cheer him from the moment he came back, but they decided not to turn him. Yeah. But the thing is also, now they're doing it where they're making him the pro-typical WVE baby face, which you might recognize from one, Seamus'is' baby face, where he's just, like, a petulant man child. Yeah.

And, you know, Sparkle Crotch, it can be, hey, he's getting Sparkle Crotch over, so I'll give him that at least, but it's, Do you have a Seth Freakin Rollins T-shirt? I do not yet. That seemed like a little bit of an early. They pulled the trigger a little bit early on Seth's freaking-R-R-W-Had. I'm surprised they're not like making him like end. Well, that's just it. Like he's not, he hasn't earned the character that they decided to book him into three months ago.

And it's not a knock on him. It's just like the storyline hasn't been told, like, you know, he should have got, he, he, Seth Rollins' face turned. If you're not, if you're not going to do it at just a time when he came back, he's just got to earn it from having, you know, three months of five-star matches, and then the crowd just can't stop at cheer him, but to do it in the sort of like very traditional wrestling way,

oh, my evil boss turned on me. I don't know. My boss is a bitch. Get a load of her, huh? That's literally it. Yeah, exactly. But anyway, I think this match, I mean, I have all the confidence in the world

this is going to be a really cool match. And I think that from what we're talking about, the interesting thing is this, like this is their chance sort of for a reboot, for, not that they need a full reboot, but like, I think that Owens and Rawlins could both stand to be, you know, 20% more lauded by the fans, more over, I guess, you know?

I mean, Owens has been flawless in a lot of ways, but he's not. I will say the end of Raw this week was really good, I think, for both of them and for the story, but they're just deciding to beat the shit out of each other. Yeah, absolutely true. And I think Owens being like, like, legitimate, like, jerk. like asshole heel who just like keeps trying to kill him as opposed of just joking.

I mean, I love a good Kevin Owen's joke. Yeah. But he can get tough. He can. He can. And he's doing a really good job of balancing between the sort of comedy stick with Jericho and just being a real badass too. So, but I think that Sunday is with as much comedy as they've been doing and as much storyline, I say deliberately slowly that they've kind of built into this feud. Sunday is a really big moment for like balancing out the, these are two of the best performers.

in the wrestling world side of the spectrum. Anyway, who do you think is going to win? Let's say Owens and move stuff along and let, you know, Owens actually be a little competent champ for a bit. You think we're going to see like a Triple H appearance? Is this the moment or is that, or are we saving that for down the road? I would think so, but it depends on the shifting of the schedule for the main events. Yeah.

It's a good point. It's a good point. Maybe that's why when they announced Sasha and Charlotte for the main event spot, they took it back because they were like, oh, wait, we can't do that. Well, it wasn't they who did it. It was Mick Foley who said it. And I feel like McFoly misspoke. And by I feel like I'm 100% sure.

Do you think that they did that he just saw, got an email? I mean, I'm just, first of all, I'm caveing this and saying that like, there was like a Slack group for like the WW RAW management crew. There's no way there's a Slack group for them. They are so disorganized. Wouldn't that be great, though, if it was just like Stephanie and Mick and like, you know, and a couple of assistants? And they were just like, hey, what do you think about booking raw this week? And then Stephanie intervened every time and was just like, we'll make that decision during the show.

Well, I know that Daniel Bryan and Shipping Man definitely don't have it because on talking smack, Daniel's usually like, I haven't talked to Shane yet about this. Yeah. Like the Spirit Squad thing. It's like, now was Shane's decision. I don't know why. That's a great, it's a great gimmick. Just blame everything on Shane. I don't even remember what I was saying

Oh, do you think that McFully just got the email Or the Slack that was like, by the way, we have three Like, like this is going to like the women's match is a main event two Or whatever and he was just like, it's the main event No, I think he just saw the poster which is just And then he said because they weren't talking three main events Until he said it's the main event. Yeah.

The WWE's like poster making department Whatever that marketing publicity department has been one of the most integral parts of the Devas revolution outside of the ring just because it's like remember the WrestleMania posters like all every time of SummerSlam like when they put all of the wrestlers faces up above the arena they put they put Charlotte and Sasha or Paige whoever up there like you know they'll cut Randy Orton to put Charlotte on the poster and it's been really great um all right last match speaking of the women Sasha versus Charlotte um flare oh sorry it's

Charlotte Flair now. When did that happen? Literally this week. Okay, because I miss things. And then, so Sasha Banks versus Charlotte Flair, hell on a cell match for the WWE Raw Women's Championship. On a scale of one to five, how much hell is in this cell? My hard drive just crashes when I think about, like, what it could be. Because it, I wanted to be like a five, but it can't be a five because five is, like,

when I get into kind of the old school hell in a cell anyway. And it's kind of the thing where could it be a four or what are we doing here? They have to like try to kill each other, right? I mean, if history is any indication, yeah. I mean, it could be, I'm going to make the prediction that like they go on the ceiling. I mean, they go on the roof of the cell. Because I don't know which other two are going to end up on the roof. And I feel like at a night like this, like we said, there's three different hell in a cell matches.

Like every hell in a cell spot is going to be. going to get a chance is going to like happen at some point i think that'd be i think that'd be a great way to start the fight we'll see i'm scared um i am too i am too there's going to be like i think that's the five i think there's five i think there's the full full capacity of hell in that cell um i'm still not i think they're going to definitely push for that that five we'll see if they get their five i think that's i think that's exactly right yeah yeah yeah it's the basic thing of i'm sure that everyone is going to be pushing for something. It's a matter of to be allowing it or not, really.

And that's kind of the problem now, really, with these, like, hell themselves. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, and I just don't, I mean, they've done, they've had so many good matches. Man, I, yeah, I'm going to be watching that on pins and needles, but my expectations are certainly high. Not been a big fan of the booking being about, you know,

making history as opposed to just beating each of, other up. And, you know, McFoley having to tell them, hey, this is dangerous, where he's not telling anyone else that's dangerous. There are two other hell in the cell, and he's not playing protective dad to them. Yeah. A little bit weird. He's not going up to Rusef. He's not going to line being like, hey, your husband could die in this match. It's, it's funny because that's sort of been, I mean, I think, let me just say, I think McFoli has been an incredible net positive to Ross, since he's become the GM. I kind of disagree, actually.

I thought he was going to be terrible. And I think there's a lot of ways. I think that he's managed to find a sort of serious, like serious uncle role outside of Monday night or outside of the women in general, his passion for women's wrestling comes through. And I think that's really important, especially to average fans.

Not the target audience of this podcast, but still. But the But Monday But he always has been a little bit Just a little bit His tone is always a little bit off With women's wrestling And I think it's like

It's very patronizing It's not intentional But exactly He has the best of intentions But it just comes off a little bit Like It's creepy's not the right word But it's just a little bit patronizing

And Monday night It's unfortunate On the go home show I don't know But if he had done that with guys. I was going to say it's unfortunate that that's like the tone

they struck for the big go home. But if he had done that same spot, which I think he has in the past, right? With like, if he had done that with Owens and Rollins, it wouldn't have felt patronizing particularly. But he didn't do it. His situation with Rollins,

we've already had him basically like, oh, you're, when he tried to punish Rollins for interfering with things and it was like, we're going to have a talk. Did you ever do anything about it? No.

Like, you're going to talk to you and they never actually did anything with that. So it was just like kind of emphrine D. He seemed... Well, maybe they had to talk. Maybe it was off camera.

This is the new, this is the new reality era. So Sparkle Crotch is the result of Foley talking to Rollins. So I'm really upset with Foley. Who do you think is going to win this match? Sasha. I'd say Sasha. He's going to win a die trying. That's what I'm worried about.

I'm really... See, the thing is, you know, there's always the... I guess the detractors now who are saying, Sasha Banks, you know, she wrestles unsafe, where from where I'm standing, like, the last two injuries she's had were because a referee need her in the head during a match. And Charlotte, like, dropped her on her head, like a bunch of times. Yeah, I think that, I mean, certainly Sasha has done, but Sasha has also done some unsafe things that have not resulted in injuries. And I think that's where a lot of that comes from, you know. But like the last two times, it's definitely not been on her.

And you can't just say, well, that just means that she. he's injury prone when people are being kind of unsafe, even a referee. He need her in the head. It's an unsafe world. And as McFoley has told us, the Hell and a Cell is less safe than just about anywhere else you could want to be. It changes careers. It changes the way that old men walk.

I don't know what else happens in Hellness, hell. There's lots of hell. Yeah, I'm with you. I could go either way on this match. I'm going to feel like we've agreed on most of it so far. we want nothing but the best for it I do think that this is an interesting

it's going to be interesting to see who wins because of all of the history making garbage that they've been spouting for the past month only because like you know it means you know that WWE is going to make the decision here based on history making right?

When you can really just do it based on like they hate each other yeah but I think whoever wins it's going to be like WWE is going to have gonna, WWWB knows that the visual of Sasha standing in the middle or on top of the cell with like a little bit of blood

coming out of her nose holding up the belt is going to be a visual they use for the rest of time, right? So if it's Sasha or Charlotte, like you're making a decision based on like your future video library usage almost which is not, I don't mean that in like a condescending, demeaning way, whatever.

That's like this kind of thing that's going to be in the then now forever pretty much. Exactly. This is, when they talk about making history. That's really what they mean. That's the concrete way that you make history in WWE. You, you know, have a visual that's so significant that you make it on to like the bumper, the bumper video. You know, I mean, that's, it's going to be that big of a deal. But yeah, it's going to be, it's going to be interesting. I think they sold it in their promo for the contract signing. I do think Mick, like they would get on a role during the promo and Mick would interject and it would kind of take everything down. Yeah. Because again, the

patronizing, it's, like, they're still, they're still superstars pretty much. And it just seems like, oh, woman, you don't know what you're doing, pretty much. Like, you talk about how they love wrestling and how they know wrestling so much. They, they know. They're not doing, I mean, Kevin Owens kind of threw it in, a joke basically about how, like, it seems so cool to go into. But, like, they understand the gravity of the situation. And I think that could be lost in Mix, like, trying to stop them.

Listen, if anybody understands the gravity of hell in a cell, it's McFoly, since he fell off of it twice. That's his own damn fault. Once, okay. Twice. Well, the first time was his fault. The second time was not his fault, right? Do I have the sequence correct? If you get on top of the cell more than once, the second time's your fault.

Yeah, that's definitely true. There's, yeah. I guess, you know, whatever. Spoken, like, two people who would never be on top of Helena cell. Dude, I got into the WW ring at Access one time, one time. I think I've been in more than once since then, but the first time I went in, it's the scariest thing in the world. Like the ropes feel like they're just going to cut your arm off.

Like everything about it is just intense. I can't even imagine a hell in a cell. You know, like I already give up. I hit a rope. You tap out immediately. Yeah, oh no. It would not take long. I used to have nightmares when I was a kid about being in wrestling matches.

It always sounded cool. It was a fun dream on the way to the ring, and then I would get inside the steel cage, and I would be like, oh, I don't know how to wrestle. Why are you not knowing how to wrestle in your dream? That's a really great question. I guess my insecurities are not constrained by space and time. Anyway, there will be no insecurities on Sunday night.

Helen and cell is going to be a lot of fun. And then, NXT, which will probably, you know, for those of us who live in L.A. and who's, you know, somehow got tickets, it's going to be a good time. Who do you think we're going to see? In L.A.? Yeah.

Like, at the thing? Yeah. Regruban? I mean, what do you... No, I'm saying, like, who do you think is going to be on the card? We don't know the card for NXT. Didn't they?

I think they're doing part of the tag team tournament there. Oh, they are? It's classic. Yeah, they've announced that. So that'll be fun. It depends on the tag team. Yeah, I guess that's true. Anyway,

one way or another, where I'm going to have a wrestling-filled Sunday. So will you, and those listening to this, enjoy Helen Osell. In case you didn't know it, Sasha Banks' favorite wrestler is Eddie Guerrero. I feel like I heard something about that. I just think it's worth throwing in. Did you?

T.J. Perkins likes video games. I don't know if you knew that. Oh, that's good. That's good. It makes me like him more. Do you want to, do you have any plugs? Let's see. You guys can follow me on Twitter at LaFergs. Just watch all a Black Mirror season three, specifically San Juan Apparo. Just watch that over and over and over again. We have a great San Juanapiro piece on The Ringer. It's either up.

Probably when you're listening this, it'll be up regardless. And yeah, I guess that's it. Enjoy hell in a cell. I hope that your cell is full of hell, humanoid. I hope that your cell is full of hell.